Wednesday, February 11, 2015

‘Operation Desert Storm’
and ‘Operation Desert Shield’ were the names of combat waged by coalition forces from 34 nations led
by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation
of Kuwait in 1990.

During the war, it was
name that was often heard – a cruise missile (the BGM-109) 20-foot-long weapon
reportedly costing $1.3 million. It was described as a ‘ booster rocket shoots
the missile off a ship or submarine. Then the small turbofan engine takes over
and the missile jets toward land, directed by its "inertial-guidance
system" which uses sensors and gyroscopes to measure acceleration and
changes in direction. Once the missile crosses the shoreline, a more precise
guidance method, TERCOM, takes over. TERCOM scans the landscape at set
checkpoints, taking altitude readings and comparing them to map data in its
computer memory. The missile moves at about 550 miles per hour, and can make
twists and turns like a radar-evading fighter plane all the while skimming over
the land at 100 feet to 300 feet’ . In
1991 - 288 of it were launched. The
first salvo was fired by the cruiser USS San Jacinto in Jan 1991.

It is the ‘
Tomahawk ’ a long-range,
all-weather, subsonic cruise missile. The missile was named after the Native
American axe. Introduced by McDonnell Douglas in the 1970s, it was initially
designed as a medium to long-range, low-altitude missile that could be launched
from a surface platform. It has been improved several times, and due to
corporate divestitures and acquisitions, is now made by Raytheon.

It is in news recently for
the test conducted – that of a Raytheon Tomahawk land attack missile (TLAM)
against a moving target at sea – that could be a short-term answer to the U.S.
Navy’s long-range anti-surface missile problem.
The test – conducted off of San Nicolas Island, Calif. – demonstrated
that a TLAM launched from a ship could be guided into a moving target at sea by
a Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

An unclassified video of
the test, obtained by USNI News, shows the missile
launch from guided missile destroyer USS Kidd (DDG-100), fly for an unspecified
amount of time and punch a hole through a shipping container on a moving ship
target and skip across the ocean.
“It demonstrates the viability of long-range communications for position
updates of moving targets,” Capt. Joe Mauser, Tomahawk Weapons System (PMA-280)
program manager for Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) said in a Feb. 5 Navy
statement. “This success further demonstrates the existing capability of
Tomahawk as a netted weapon, and in doing so, extends its reach beyond fixed
and re-locatable points to moving targets.”

In what is termed as an extraordinary
footage - Tomahawk missile is seen punching a hole completely through a moving
shipping container during U.S. Navy training exercise. The Tomahawk Block IV – unlike earlier
versions of the missile – has the ability to adjust its flight path based on
new information given to the missile allowing it to hit moving targets. The missile is fired powerfully into the air in a plume
of smoke and travels considerable distance before it is seen punching through a
container. The explosive then emerges out of the other side and bounces along
the surface of the ocean.

It is stated that a previous
tomahawk missile with a 200 nautical mile range was previously developed by the
Navy in the 1980s, but there was a lack of technology to control it or ensure
it hit the correct target. Due to its limited success and the danger of hitting
friendly or neutral ships, the missiles were developed into land attack
tomahawks.